


my fault, is it my fault? (we’ve been missing each other)

by PotofCoffee



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Asexual Character, F/F, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 11:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12680622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotofCoffee/pseuds/PotofCoffee
Summary: Hecate Hardbroom has known she likes girls since the day she looked at Pippa Pentangle laughing in the sunlight and thought her heart was going to beat out of her chest. It took her much longer to realize that she didn't like them in quite the right way.





	my fault, is it my fault? (we’ve been missing each other)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been stealing time between assignments to write this little thing. (It's longer than I intended, but my fics always seem to be.)  
> The first time I watched the worst witch I fell in love with the idea of ace!Hecate and really wanted to play around with it. It's definitely not the only way I see her, but it was a really fun concept to work with. I also wanted to write this because I find overall the theme in fanfic is to have ace characters still be willing to have sex with their non-ace partners and that's not true for all ace people.  
> General warning for an ace person thinking of themselves as wrong and broken.
> 
> For Nova, for getting me into this mess and making me fall in love with this ridiculous witch. Please move closer. ♥

Hecate Hardbroom has known she likes girls since the day she looked at Pippa Pentangle laughing in the sunlight and thought her heart was going to beat out of her chest. It took her much longer to realize that she didn't like them in quite the right way. 

Hecate has no trouble accepting how she feels about Pippa. They are friends from the third day of first year, from the moment Pippa plops herself down beside Hecate in potions class and introduces herself with a wide smile. Hecate doesn't understand what Pippa’s doing, trying to befriend her, spends three weeks waiting for the punchline, waiting for Pippa to laugh and admit she’s been playing a prank on her all along. That moment doesn’t come.They are a common sight, the two of them, going everywhere together. Joined at the hip—literally for a few days in second year after Pippa takes a few too many chances with a potion. Both are always dressed in the carefully regimented shades of black and grey that make up the uniform at Reoch’s Academy, the oldest witches’ school in the country, yet somehow Pippa is still bright and colorful and Hecate plain and prim. 

Hecate feels gangly and awkward beside her friend. She is too tall, too skinny, all harsh angles and uncoordinated limbs. Pippa, on the other hand, is graceful, her movements fluid, her smile easy and kind. People genuinely like Pippa from the moment they meet her. People don’t like Hecate, no matter how long they know her for. Even her teachers think her too serious, too studious, too quiet in class. She is as shy as she is brilliant; she always knows the answer and rarely puts her hand up to share it with the class. Pippa has no qualms about speaking up, ever. Hecate likes rules and school and studying. Pippa likes knowledge, cares much less for rules, likes beauty and aesthetics in a way that Hecate envies but never understands. Pipsqueak, Hecate calls her, and that nickname is the most ungainly thing about her. They are opposites in many ways, in almost every way perhaps, united by a deep and abiding love of magic. This works for them as friends—just—Hecate knows it won’t work for anything more.

They’re in fourth year when Hecate learns friendship is not enough for her. She doesn’t know what she wants, exactly, as her heart skips and flutters in her ribcage, except she wants to be close to Pippa all the time, wants to be subsumed by the warmth that Pippa’s company always provides. 

The fact that she and Pippa are both girls does not bug Hecate in the slightest. Witchcraft and lesbianism have gone hand in hand for, well, as long as either has existed, probably. Hecate learned that in third year history along with everyone else, wrote a detailed paper on how the modern stereotype of lesbians loving cats dates back to the middle ages, to witches and their familiars and the men of the time as much threatened by their lack of need for them as by the power they wielded. She got a hundred percent on that paper. 

The concept of liking another witch, then, is mostly a non-issue for Hecate. She’s always found men boorish and infuriating anyway, the thought of never being with one is more a relief than anything else. Her worries, her constant unending concern, have more to do with herself, with Pippa, with how different they are. Pippa is brilliant and wonderful and perfect and Hecate is simply Hecate. She doesn’t know if Pippa likes witches or wizards or both, can’t bear to bring it up, but what she does know—knows more and more with each passing day—is that Pippa would never like Hecate. Not like that. 

At the end of fourth year Hecate says yes to a broomstick water-skiing display she knows she’ll never attend, spends the day of the event holed up in the library. The next day Pippa doesn’t make eye contact with her and Hecate knows it’s for the best. She spends summer break alone with her books and taking care of her mother, who somehow manages to still be dour and disapproving even when bedbound and frail. She celebrates her sixteenth birthday alone in her room with the largest tome on potion ingredients she can find and does her best not to think about all the things Pippa had had planned for this day. 

When she starts fifth year she speaks even less than she did before. She has no friends, eats alone when she can be bothered to go down for meals, watches Pippa and her gaggle of sycophants, hopes that she’s happy. Her crush doesn’t get any easier for the distance, doesn't make her feel any less like she’s about to combust when she sees her. But she has at least saved herself the pain of Pippa finding out, the inevitable ridicule and embarrassment, and she takes solace in that. 

In fifth year they gain another class to the roster, twice weekly sexual education. The girls around her snicker their way through each class; Hecate just quietly pays attention, studies hard, same as any class. She learns to brew an impeccable birth control potion, learns the warding spells and runes to protect against sexually transmitted diseases wordperfect, performs them flawlessly when tested. Of course she does; she is Hecate Hardbroom. But as she sits in class and listens to the instructor, she can’t help but wonder why anyone would want to do any of this in the first place. Hecate has no interest in men, she knows that without a doubt, but even when it comes to women she can’t imagine the appeal. Even kissing, to her, seems messy and strange. The idea of touching someone’s genitals, or having them touch hers… disgusting. She can’t conceive of wanting to be naked with someone, to do any of these things with someone, and she doesn’t understand why their teacher acts like it’s inevitable that they’ll all be doing this sooner or later.

The girls talk outside of class, too. Hecate thinks that they all talk much too much, in fact, and that they’d all be doing much better in their classes if they talked less and studied more. But still, they talk. And Hecate for all of her attempts to stay aloof hears much of it. She hears of Lucia’s secret boyfriend at the wizarding academy nearby. Hears that Vera and Salome were caught kissing under the stairs by Miss Kruckow and sentenced to a week’s detention. As they should be, Hecate thinks with a nod, a school is no place for antics like that. They talk about kissing and sex so much that Hecate wonders if anyone her age talks of anything else.

One day, she’s on her way to the library to while away a free study period and she overhears a group of her classmates laughing in the courtyard nearby. Pippa’s with them, that Hecate knows at once—she can pick the sound of Pippa’s laugh out of anything. 

“Oh c’mon Hazel!” one of the girls exclaims. “Don’t be ridiculous! Everybody does it. I’m sure even dried up old Hecate has slipped her hand down her knickers to see what the fuss is all about!” More laughter, then, louder and more raucous than before.

It’s enough to stop Hecate in her tracks. Not the cruelty, no, she’s more than used to that by now, but the words themselves. Everybody does it, even Hecate. 

Everybody.

Hecate is smart and studious and believes enough in school and education to believe that her elders are there to teach her about everything that pertains to the world. She squares her shoulders, sets her mouth in a firm line, and heads up to see the nurse. She waits for Miss Athame in her office while she finishes healing a first year’s broken arm—a flying accident, Hecate overhears the girl’s friend say. When Miss Athame comes in she greets Hecate with a smile. 

“How can I help you today Hecate?” she asks, pouring herself a cup of tea. “Another question about healing potions for me?”

“No Miss,” Hecate says. “It’s about something else.” She takes a breath, is surprised at how suddenly shy she is when it comes to saying the words, but the subject does feel oddly taboo as a whole. “I was wondering about, um, masturbation.”

“Oh,” Miss Athtame replies, smiling more broadly now, “I see.” She comes around to the other side of her desk, takes a seat beside Hecate and reaches out to pat her knee. “Nothing to worry about there dear, everybody does it.”

“Everybody?” Hecate asks quietly. She had been sure until that moment that it couldn’t be the case, that it surely couldn’t be possible that everyone wants to do  _ that _ , but Miss Athame’s tone is firm and knowing.

“Oh yes dear,” she says. “Everyone. Even your mum I’m sure, though no one wants to think about that.”

“Why?” Hecate asks, a bold question, perhaps, but she has to know.

“Why not?” Miss Athame says, laughs at her own joke. “There’s no bad reason, Hecate. Because it’s fun, because it feels nice, or a lot of the time because there’s a young witch or wizard you fancy,” she winks at Hecate. “Has that cleared things up for you?”

“Yes,” Hecate says. No, Hecate thinks.

“Glad to hear it,” she pats Hecate’s knee one more time and stands up. “Did  you get anywhere on that bone regrowth potion you were asking me about?”

“Oh yes,” Hecate says. “I think I’ve almost got it figured out. Thank you, Miss.”

“Anytime Hecate, anytime.”

Hecate heads back to the library, tries her best to study, does an abysmal job of it. She forces herself to concentrate on the last two lessons of the day, thanks her lucky stars that it’s Advanced Potions and Advanced Spellcasting, two subjects that require complete attention. That night, however, lying in the rickety bed in her small room at the end of the hall, she can’t think of anything but. She thinks about what Miss Athame said, about fancying someone and that being the reason. 

She thinks about Pippa, really thinks about her, about how beautiful she is, how kind she is, how she draws Hecate in no matter where they are, no matter what they’re doing. She tries to imagine wanting to do that with Pippa, searches her own mind, tries to see if thinking of Pippa makes her want to… touch herself. It doesn’t, still doesn’t. She still thinks it all seems dirty and messy and weird. All she wants with Pippa, at the end of the day, is to be close to her. All the time. Preferably while they both remain fully clothed. 

She lies in bed and stares up at the dark ceiling and thinks that there must be something really truly wrong with her.

* * *

Hecate finishes year five at the top of her class, graduates with top honours, doesn’t mind in the slightest that Pippa gets the job of valedictorian. Much better she than her to be making a speech in front of all the school anyway. She gets her witching certificate, doesn’t have anyone to sign the back of it as all of the girls are doing. She likes it better unsullied, she decides. The only people she has to say goodbye to are her teachers. She thanks them serenely for their work in instructing her and leaves it at that. She packs up her things alone, heads home alone, buries her mother alone, heads off to teaching school alone.

Hecate’s gotten very good at being alone.

She’s been accepted at the Balfour College of Magical Learning, the premiere teaching college in the land. She had worried for a while that Pippa might end up at the same school, they had always both wanted to be teachers, had planned at one point to attend Balfour’s together. She overhears however that Pippa’s headed to America, to one of their liberal namby-pamby colleges that eschews all the good solid history of witchery in favour of an ‘everyone can do magic if they really want to’ approach that makes Hecate shudder. No wonder the craft is headed towards decline. Still, it will suit Pippa well. She’s always had strange ideas when it comes to that sort of thing.

“I’m going to have my own school one day,” she had told Hecate one day as they lay on the warm grass and stared up at the clouds, back when they were still friends. “My own school that anyone can attend. Any gender, any background, everyone will be welcome.”

“Sounds ghastly,” Hecate had replied.

“I’ll even give you a job,” Pippa had said, ignoring her. “Let you be my deputy head if you’re really nice to me.”

“I wouldn’t work for you,” Hecate had told her primly.

“What?” That had been enough for Pippa to sit up and look at her.

“I’m going to work at a proper academy,” Hecate had continued. “One with a long history and a superb reputation. One with standards.”

Pippa had just laughed.

America will suit her well, Hecate thinks.

University is quite different from school. They still live in dorms, which Hecate likes, and of course they still have classes, but everything else is much less regulated. They get to choose their own classes for one, and the breadth of options available fills Hecate with such a yearning it leaves her breathless. She wants to take all of them. She petitions the faculty and gets permission to take two more than a full course load; it still takes her forever to whittle down her list of everything she wants to take to those she can fit in.

There’s no uniform, either, and Hecate misses that. She liked not having to worry about what to wear. Still, they are witches after all, so all but the very showiest pupils wear more or less the same thing from day to day. She chooses a plain black dress with a high collar and just a bit of dark blue stitching around the middle. She braids her hair in the same way every day, considers trying to fiddle around with makeup spells but they’re such a bother and she doesn’t know what would look good on her. She wishes for a moment—fleeting but breathtakingly intense—that Pippa were there to show her what to do.

She’s still quiet, especially in the massive lecture halls that house some of her first year courses, but in the smaller classes she does her best to speak up more. It’s a bigger challenge, here, to stay ahead, to keep on top of the work, but she’s still one of the smartest witches in class. The university library is everything Hecate has ever dreamed of, and she spends her extra time leafing through reference books, trying to learn everything there is to learn. An impossible task, but she still wants to try.

She doesn’t make friends easily, still feels awkward in her own skin much like she did at Reoch’s. But she’s starting to get more graceful, starting to grow into her height, trips over her own feet much less than she used to. She gets to know a few people, enough to nod at at least, starts to make a home for herself at this school. 

Arabelle Zayne is in three of Hecate’s classes, they habitually sit next to each other in all of them. As a Zayne her lineage goes back almost as Hecate’s. She is smart and studious and very handsome. Not Pippa’s pink sort of pretty, no, more of a sedate traditional beauty. She wears all black, keeps her dark red hair in a tight bun, follows all of witching customs from her collar to her neatly painted nails. She speaks up in class rarely but when she does it’s thoughtful and well-informed. Hecate likes sitting beside her, likes looking at her, likes just being near her. She is serene and kind and greets Hecate’s shy smiles with a warm quirk of her lips every time.

She asks Hecate out for a drink after their midterm exam for The Rhetoric of 13th Century Chanting and Hecate tries not to stumble over the words when she assents.

They go to the campus pub, find a seat in a back corner and order two mugs of honey mead. The place is raucous, filled with students cheering their success and drinking away their sorrows in turn. Arabelle smiles ruefully at Hecate, casts a quick quietness spell about them, and the sounds dwindle to a quiet hum.

“That’s better,” she says, “I want to be able to hear you while we talk.”

“That… would be nice,” Hecate agrees, takes a sip of her mead and wills her brain to say intelligent, interesting things.

In the end she doesn’t have to worry, Arabelle is a great conversationalist and Hecate finds herself caught up before too long. They start by discussing their classes, their professors, what subjects they want to specialize in. Potions for Hecate, Spell History for Arabelle. 

They move on to more esoteric subjects, spend a good half hour on a recently released paper about synthetic vs natural ingredients. 

“I just cannot align myself with the idea that synthetic ingredients can be reasonably swapped in for the real versions,” Hecate says, passion overtaking her tendency to taciturnity. “Some ingredients may be unpleasant to gather, true, but we’re witches! We respect the natural world, yes, I don’t know a single potions mistress who doesn’t give back by blessing the earth and the animals at the equinoxes, but we also draw our power from it. Harvesting ingredients from flora and fauna is as much a part of our history as, as, as the Witchcraft Act of 1563!”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Arabelle agrees with a kind smile. “I guess you and I are just traditionalists, Hecate.” As she speaks she lays a warm hand on the hand Hecate has resting on the table. Hecate blushes at the feeling, smiles and twines her fingers with hers. She feels warm and pleased and a little giddy. The feeling lasts through the night, imbuing the room and their conversation with a sort of golden glow that Hecate thinks she can almost see, lasts to the point that they’re both barely stifling yawns and Hecate can feel her eyelids trying to droop.

In the end, it’s Arabelle who gives in first, admitting shyly that she really must get to bed if she’s to make it to her morning classes on time. Hecate just nods in agreement, follows her to the door, pleased that Arabelle hasn’t yet seen fit to let go of her hand. They stand beside the door to say their farewells, faces lit up by golden lamplight. It’s snowing lightly—a bit early for where they are, just north of Hadrian’s wall—making for a beautiful, crisp night. 

“Thank you,” Hecate says quietly, “I had a great time.”

“Me too,” Arabelle says, smiles, and then she’s taking a half step forward and leaning up on tiptoes and pressing her lips against Hecate’s.

Up until that moment Hecate had been harbouring a shred, just a modicum, of hope. Maybe she was just a late bloomer. Maybe she just didn’t understand. Maybe when she had her first kiss—sweet and magical—she would understand and she would be just like everyone else. Well, the kiss is here and it’s far from magical. It’s awkward and strange and… damp? She stands there woodenly and prays for it to be over.

It ends soon enough, thankfully, Arabelle steps back and the look on her face just makes Hecate feel worse. 

“Sorry,” she says. “I thought, well, sorry.”

“No!” the word rushes out of Hecate’s mouth. “No…” she trails off because how can she explain this? How can she think that things would be better if Arabelle were to know just how broken she is?   
“It’s fine, Hecate,” Arabelle says. “Just tell me I wasn’t wrong about one thing. You don’t like wizards, do you?”

“No,” Hecate says. This, at least, she can answer. “No, I like witches.”

“Just not this one,” Arabelle sighs. “Goodbye Hecate.” And she disappears. Leaving Hecate all alone with a heavy heart and a troubled mind.

She walks back to her dorm. It’s not too far, after all. She could so easily snap her fingers and be back in her room in an instant, but she feels the need to clear her head. Anyway, the biting cold attacking her cheeks and her nose, the wet slush soaking her boots, the chill and the discomfort, feel almost like a penance. Something she deserves, certainly.

Hecate gets home and begins the work of building a wall around herself, brick by brick of separation making an impenetrable armour. She speaks up less in her classes, masters a look that is the perfect marriage of aloof and derisive, uses it on anyone who dares be brave enough to try and befriend her. She takes on more classes, as many as she may, buries herself in academia and knowledge. She will never be enough, she knows that. Not for anyone. But if she works very very hard she just might be able to know enough, to learn enough. She buries herself in learning and along the way she gets even better at being alone.

* * *

Hecate graduates summa cum laude. Gets a junior teaching position at a small but respected school, has worked there for five years when she hears about the opening at Cackle’s. It’s a good school, a great school, one of the best. She applies for the job and thinks she hasn’t wanted anything as badly as she wants this. Not since… but that doesn’t bear thinking on.

She gets the job, Miss Cackle mirrors her herself to inform her that she, Hecate Hardbroom, is to be Cackle’s Academy’s new potions mistress. She thanks Miss Cackle serenely, can’t quite keep the smile off her face. Realises with a start that it’s been awhile since she’s smiled at anyone.

Ada is a kind woman. A magnificent witch. She harbours many absurd beliefs about education that Hecate itches to correct her on. They become the subject of lively debate once she learns that yes, Ada is serious when she says she wants Hecate’s opinion. Wants challenge and disagreement from her staff, not subservience. She is warm and lovely and despite herself Hecate feels some of that warmth seeping in past her barriers.

Ada makes her her deputy and Hecate learns to make her peace with friendly conversation, and staff nights out, and late nights in Ada’s office discussing magical theory and teaching techniques over tea and those absurdly sweet biscuits Ada loves so. Years pass and Hecate begins to feel comfortable. Finally unpacks her trunk all the way. Changes the layout of the furniture in her room because it suits her better. She likes it here, likes the people here, she’ll eventually admit. It’s years in the making when the realisation dawns on her that despite her personal failings she doesn’t have to quite be alone, she can have friends, nothing but her awkwardness and her affinity for being alone is stopping her from that.

Friendship, the concept of it even, sits unevenly on her shoulders, but she grows into it. Gets used to it. Accepts the affection in her heart for these people in her life. She gets comfortable in her routine here: potions, new students, sparring with Ada over the decline of the witching world. Even Mildred Hubble, with her questionable lineage and incredible ability to leave mayhem in her wake, doesn’t upset the routine too much. They have had others like her, before, she and Ada, and they have taught them each in turn how to control their magic, have ensured that no graduate from their academy would be unleashed on the world without the ability to control their powers—nothing, after all, is more dangerous than that.

“...against Miss Pentangle’s Academy.” Ada is saying and Hecate feels the name like a blow.

“Miss Pentangle?” she asks, hoping against hope that she heard wrong.

“That’s right,” Ada replies calmly. 

Hecate thinks she might need to go lie down. For about thirty seconds she plays with the idea that Pippa might send her deputy instead of coming herself. Absurd. No headmistress in her right mind would miss the spelling bee. She does her best to calm her racing heart, tries to make peace with the fact that Pippa will be here, in her school, tomorrow.

Seeing Pippa again is awful. She looks amazing, of course she does, bedecked in ridiculous pink that Hecate sneers at even as she thinks about how well it complements her complexion. The awfulness does not come from Pippa. Pippa could never be awful. No, it is awful because all of the thoughts and feelings, all the things Hecate thought banished to her youth, come back in an instant. Threaten to overwhelm her. She clenches her jaw and wills herself to be better than this, this youthful infatuation that was absurd even then.

She is amazed when they win the spelling bee, when  _ Mildred Hubble _ wins the spelling bee. And she is even more amazed when she somehow, beyond her every imagination, ends up friends with Pippa again. Pippa, with her eyes shining with unshed tears admitting to Hecate that she wanted to be her friend. Pippa who has always thought the best of Hecate even when she has least deserved it. 

Hecate hugs Pippa—her Pipsqueak—tightly and feels at once a traitor for how much she adores it. Adores the closeness, the way Pippa smells, the way she feels in Hecate’s arms.

Hecate says goodbye to Pippa, promises to write, wonders how she will possibly contain these feelings now that running away is no longer an option. She resolves to be kind, but aloof. To treat Pippa with respect, with some level of warmth, but to keep her at an arm’s length. An acquaintanceship of peers rather than a close friendship. The problem with this, is Pippa.

Beautiful, wonderful Pippa, with no idea of the effect she has on Hecate and no concept of restraint. Now that they are friends again, she wants to be nothing but friends. She writes Hecate almost every day, asks to mirror her at least once a week. And Hecate cannot say no, not to her, not after all these years.

They have both done so much, seen so much, there is an inexhaustible well of things to talk about. Pippa is as bright and clever as ever, and their interests have followed similar lines. They discuss research and papers, have long multi-letter fights about the best potion ingredient for a particular effect, swap stories of their most challenging students and most exciting mishaps. They talk so much that Hecate feels sometimes like they never stopped being friends in the first place. Her weeks no longer seem to hold the routine of class time and work. Instead, she tells time by the stretch between letters, by the number of days until she’ll see Pippa’s face again.

And through it all, Hecate falls deeper and more dangerously in love. 

It’s still not right. Not how it’s supposed to be. Not how it is for everyone else. But it is love. Her heart brims with it, she feels powerless against the tide of it.

“Why don’t I come visit?” Pippa suggests one week after the end of term. Hecate almost drops the silver hand mirror she’s using for the call at the words.

“Um,” she says because she can’t think of anything else. She can’t say no, not justifiably, but she thinks being in Pippa’s presence might just kill her.

“Come on Hiccup!” Pippa says in that tone she adopts when she really wants something from Hecate. “It’ll be fun!”

“Uh,” Hecate still can’t quite think of words, of how to stall Pippa.

“Or you could come here?” Pippa suggests.

“No.” Hecate says. “No, no. You come here.” If she’s going to survive this she’d at least like the comforts of home around her to bolster her.

Pippa comes to visit two weeks later. Ada, upon hearing of Pippa’s plans, insisted she stay a while, comes up with a neat little plan for them to compare and contrast teaching methods to the betterment of both their academy’s, and so Hecate finds herself trying to prepare to survive a week in Pippa’s presence.

She needs to be strong. She needs to keep her wits about her and not say anything and not make anything weird. She can do that, she thinks. She can get through this without putting herself through the immense embarrassment of Pippa learning about her feelings. She will be better than she is, to spare Pippa if nothing else. 

Pippa greets Hecate with a strong hug and Hecate can feel her resolve wavering.  

Hecate loves having Pippa around, she really does. She loves having breakfast with her in the mornings, taking a stroll through the grounds around midday. She loves late night conversations over tea by roaring fires, loves the way Pippa hugs her goodnight, the way she cups one of Hecate’s cheeks with a warm hand and whispers ‘sweet dreams’ against the other. 

Three days in she realizes she’s getting used to it, to having Pippa there. She’s getting used to that constant effervescent warmth and does her very best to prepare herself for when it will be gone. 

Like everything else, arguing with Pippa is much more fun in person than on paper, and they spend their days going through teaching theory and method, often diverting to tangents about various witching subjects, their voices rising in pitch and volume as they debate passionately on one subject or another. 

“I simply cannot agree,” Hecate says one day. “I refuse to believe that modern metals such as aluminium are acceptable substitutes for cast iron in cauldrons. Tradition exists for a reason and as witches I say we must stick with it!”

“And that’s why I love you,” Pippa says, voice filled with mirth. She stops as soon as the words are out of her mouth. Claps a hand over her mouth and stares at Hecate and Hecate stares back in awe. An instant later, Hecate snaps her fingers, transfers herself to her room, begins pacing back and forth as soon as her feet are solid on the ground. 

Pippa loves her. Pippa loves  _ her _ . The thought runs through her mind again and again as Hecate grapples with what it means. Maybe Pippa just meant as a friend? She tries to rationalize with herself. Perhaps all is not lost. But no, Hecate knows better. The way Pippa looked at her after she said it… She meant it. She loves Hecate. 

Hecate curses.

It was easier before, if she’s honest. Painful, yes, sometimes she felt that the pining would rend her apart, but at least she could keep things separate, keep Pippa away from everything that’s wrong about her. Now, now she must deal with the reality. Pippa loves her and she loves Pippa but if Pippa learns that she will expect things of Hecate. Things Hecate cannot give. 

She racks her brain trying to decide what to do. She could tell Pippa she doesn’t love her, that she never wants to see her again. Push her away like she did when they were girls. She snorts. Not if Pippa has to say anything about it. That woman is as tenacious as she is beautiful. Hecate sighs at the thought, wishes she didn’t find it so endearing. 

So she cannot lie and she cannot get Pippa to go away but she cannot bear the thought of Pippa looking at her with the hurt, the disgust that Hecate knows will come.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a soft knock on the door.

“Hiccup,” she can hear Pippa call from the other side. “Hiccup please let me in.”

Her voice is small, verging on heartbroken. Hecate can’t bear it. She opens the door with a wave of her hand, stands awkwardly in the center of the room and waits for Pippa to come inside.

“I’m sorry,” Pippa says quietly. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to say it.”

“I…” Hecate begins, trails off, tries to muster the courage to do what she must.

“I’ll admit,” Pippa continues, braver than Hecate could ever be, “I had rather hoped you might feel the same way.”

“Um,” Hecate says, swallows hard, meets Pippa’s eyes. She can’t manage the words but it seems she doesn’t need to because Pippa is smiling, joyously and oh, she is stunning when she’s happy.

“You do, don’t you?” she says, the words spilling out of her, breathless and excited.

“I,” Hecate takes a deep breath, sighs, “I do.”

“Oh Hiccup!” Pippa takes a step forward, reaches a hand out towards her, and Hecate steps back quickly, evades her touch.

“No,” she says. “No, Pippa, Pipsqueak, it’s not that simple.” She wonders if this will be the last time she gets to use that nickname.

“Why not? I love you, you love me. That’s the simplest thing in the world.”

“No,” Hecate shakes her head, “it’s not.”

“Then what is it? I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“You can’t fix it,” Hecate says.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s me!” She says the words with more heat than she intended, takes a breath and continues, quieter. “I’m what’s wrong.” She drops her eyes to the ground, bites her lip, hopes that maybe Pippa will make this easier on both of them and just leave.

She doesn’t. Instead she waits for a few moments and Hecate can see her feet move, she’s rocking back and forth on her toes. She used to do that in school, all those years ago, when she was thinking about an answer, deciding what to say or—more likely—how to weasel them both out of a predicament entirely hers in the making. Hecate finds it surprisingly comforting. It reminds her that after everything this is still her Pipsqueak, someone who knows her inside and out. It gives her the courage to raise her head, to look at Pippa for a moment before looking away, focusing her expression on a dark spot on the stone wall, willing herself to keep her composure.

“I…” she stops, swallows hard. “The thing is—”

“Why don’t we have a seat?” Pippa says kindly. Hecate looks over to the chairs in the corner beside the fireplace, sees that Pippa has already set them to face each other and started a fire behind the grate. She nods, walks over and takes a seat, can hear Pippa behind her as she goes. Once they’re both seated, Pippa reaches out a hand towards Hecate’s knee but doesn’t place it down before asking “may I?” Hecate nods and then Pippa’s hand is there, on her knee, gentle and comforting and almost—almost—too much. “Take your time,” Pippa says. “Take as long as you need. I’m listening.”

Haltingly, Hecate starts to speak. She watches Pippa’s hand on her knee as she does, can’t bear to look Pippa in the eye as she reveals this. She tells her about feeling different when they were young, about the kiss with Arabelle, about how even if she doesn’t know why, she knows she doesn’t want anything to do with sex, with kissing, with any of that. When she’s done, Pippa is silent for just a moment.

“Hiccup,” she says then, her voice laced with mirth and Hecate bristles immediately.

“Don’t laugh,” she says, voice cold, immediately thinking of the best place to transfer herself.

“I wasn’t,” Pippa says quickly, “I didn’t, I would never laugh at you Hiccup, not about this.” She pauses, leans her head to the side to catch Hecate’s gaze and smiles at her when their eyes meet. “It’s just, of all the things to be worried about. Of all the things that you would think would keep me from wanting to be with you, this is… Well, I would say it’s easy to fix but that wouldn’t be right because there’s nothing to fix.”

The sound Hecate makes is halfway between a ‘huh’ and a ‘what’, entirely undignified and something which, in future, she will vehemently deny ever making.

“Oh my Darling,” Pippa’s voice brims with love, “you are perfect just as you are.” That, is obviously false, but Pippa says it like she believes it and it’s enough for a tiny flicker of hope to alight in Hecate’s chest.

“You don’t care?” Hecate asks, can’t believe it to be true.

“I care that you’re you. Kind, wonderful you. I care that you love me. I care that you will be good to me and honest with me. That’s what matters, Hiccup.”

“But,” Hecate still can’t get over this, this insurmountable stumbling block that Pippa seems to think is nothing. “Don’t you care that I’ll never, that we’ll never,” she waves her hand, doesn’t even really feel comfortable saying the words.

“Hiccup,” Pippa says, leaning forward and placing her free hand on Hecate’s other knee. “If it was something that you wanted then I would happily share that with you but as you don’t, well, there are many roads to intimacy, my love, and sex is only one of them. Anyway,” she grins, “I’m a grown woman. I’m more than capable of taking care of my own orgasms. While you’re not around, if need be.”

“Pipsqueak,” Hecate says softly, wills her voice not to break. “I do love you.” 

Pippa’s response is immediate, her face lighting up and then she’s leaning in, pulling Hecate into a very awkward, very tight hug and Hecate can only follow her lead, lean in, hug her back.

“Oh,” Pippa says, pulls back a little, “is this? I mean, are hugs okay?” Hecate is touched by her care, by the worry in her tone, and she nods against Pippa’s neck.

“Hugs are good. Great.”

Pippa laughs, tugs Hecate to her feet so she can hug her properly and then it’s Pippa in her arms and Pippa’s cheek against hers and they’ve hugged before, yes, but this feels different. This feels special and wonderful and  _ magical _ . Because it is. Because Pippa loves her and doesn’t think she’s broken and doesn’t care how different, how wrong she is. Pippa’s never cared, not since the day they met, when Hecate was all shyness and gangly limbs. She feels the laugh bubble up in her chest, can’t keep it from escaping, from bursting out.

“Sorry,” she says, “sorry, I’m just happy.”

“Oh Hiccup,” Pippa says. “Me too.”

They end up on Hecate’s bed, fully dressed. Pippa lays her head on Hecate’s chest, wraps her arm tight around Hecate’s waist. Hecate runs her hand through Pippa’s hair, marvels at the softness, of her hair, of Pippa herself. She exults in the feeling of Pippa pressed against her, at how comfortable it feels, how right it feels. She can’t remember the last time she touched anyone for this long and she feels her body soaking up the contact like a leaves soaking up the sun. She’s happy, she realises. She, Hecate Hardbroom feels happy, feels loved.

“Is this, is this okay?” Hecate checks, can’t help but worry that maybe Pippa doesn’t like this, that it somehow isn’t right.

“Mmmm,” Pippa hums the sound and Hecate can feel her smile against her chest. “This is wondrous,” she says, draws out the word and colours it with caring and approval and joy.

And she’s right, it is. Wondrous.


End file.
